Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Who knew that American college students are required to surrender the Bill of Rights at the campus gates?

Until a month ago, I would have expressed unqualified support for Title IX and for the Violence Against Women Act

writes Judith E Grossman, a feminist who has "marched at the barricades, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and knocked on
many a door in support of progressive candidates committed to women's
rights."

But that was before my son, a senior at a small liberal-arts college
in New England, was charged—by an ex-girlfriend—with alleged acts of
"nonconsensual sex" that supposedly occurred during the course of their
relationship a few years earlier.

What followed was a nightmare—a fall through Alice's looking-glass
into a world that I could not possibly have believed existed, least of
all behind the ivy-covered walls thought to protect an ostensible
dedication to enlightenment and intellectual betterment.

… like the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, the tribunal
does pretty much
whatever it wants, showing scant regard for fundamental fairness, due
process of law, and the well-established rules and procedures that have
evolved under the Constitution for citizens' protection. Who knew that
American college students are required to surrender the Bill of Rights
at the campus gates?

My son was given written notice of the
charges against him, in the form of a letter from the campus Title IX
officer. But instead of affording him the right to be fully informed,
the separately listed allegations were a barrage of vague statements,
rendering any defense virtually impossible. The letter lacked even the
most basic information about the acts alleged to have happened years
before. Nor were the allegations supported by any evidence other than
the word of the ex-girlfriend.

… While my son was instructed by the committee not to "discuss this
matter" with any potential witnesses, these witnesses against him were
not identified to him, nor was he allowed to confront or question either
them or his accuser.

… Across the country and with increasing
frequency, innocent victims of impossible-to-substantiate charges are
afforded scant rights to fundamental fairness and find themselves
entrapped in a widening web of this latest surge in political
correctness. Few have a lawyer for a mother, and many may not know about
the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which assisted me in
my research.